Viola Concerto in G major, TWV 51:G9

This is the first known concerto ever written for solo viola, composed by Telemann around 1716–21 at a time when the viola was treated almost exclusively as an inner-voice ensemble instrument. Telemann structured it in four movements following sonata da chiesa form, slow, fast, slow, fast, so the piece alternates between lyrical, sustained sections and brisk, rhythmically driven ones. The viola gets to sing in exactly the register where it sounds most like itself: neither straining upward like a violin nor rumbling downward, just a warm, slightly grainy centre that very few Baroque works put in the foreground.

What to listen for

In the opening Largo, the solo viola enters after a brief string introduction and sustains long melodic lines over a gently rocking bass, notice how the low strings stay quiet so the viola's middle register can project clearly. Then in the second movement (Allegro), the viola switches to short, energetic figures passed back and forth with the orchestra in tight alternation, a pattern called ritornello form where the full ensemble refrain keeps returning between solo passages. The contrast between these two textures, the unhurried singing of the slow movements and the punchy back-and-forth of the fast ones, is the main thing to track across all four movements.

Recommended rendition

The 2022 recording by Antoine Tamestit with Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, conducted by Bernhard Forck, has been praised for its natural phrasing and the way Tamestit draws out the instrument's distinctive timbre without forcing it to compete with the strings.

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